In the Internet age, people frequently receive information and conduct business activities including, for example, online shopping, financial transactions, and email messaging, using webpages.
When a user interacts with a webpage to perform a process, the process generally involves a long link operation. That is, multiple clicks, and even webpage redirects, may be required for such interaction through the webpages. In the long link operation, although different users may interact differently with the webpage, more than 95% of the operation paths are the same. For example, when an email is sent through a webpage mailbox, the associated operations may be described as: a user clicks “Create an email”→the page is redirected to an email editing page→the user clicks “Send”→the page is redirected and a prompt indicates that the email has been sent successfully→the user clicks “Return to the inbox” to continue browsing the mails.
In the process described above, the user can send a new mail and return to the inbox only after a series of click operations and after searching for the location of those links. For example, in the webpage that appears after the user clicks “Send” and the page is redirected, the two buttons that the user is most likely to click, e.g., “Return to the inbox” and “Send a new email,” are likely provided at inconspicuous positions on the webpage, not near a current position of the user's mouse. Therefore, if a user wishes to return to the Inbox after sending an email, the user may need to search for a position of the button, move the mouse to the position, and then click the button to return to the inbox. This processes causes unnecessary time delay before the user can return to the inbox.
To reduce such time delay and improve efficiency in web browsing and conducting business through webpages, a better webpage processing method and apparatus is needed.